Chapter 3

In went the bag, the trusty well worn and perfectly sized bag. It was an ex-army bag from a charity shop I remember and could be slung over a shoulder with the bag at hip level and easily lowered sometimes to sit or scrape on the floor depending on hem height. Eleanor’s skirt was a light weight, light buff coloured denim I think, not stiff as many denims are. It was fitted to her substantial hips and now so close I could see traces of a panty lines but I wasn’t sure, they were high, towards her hip bone. The skirt wasn’t fitted, a few tight pleats round the hips and then was stright down to just above her knees, which were bare to her feet, housed in two inch high, wedge, straw sandals, showing her toe nails in the same paint as her finger. Her limbs were meaty but shapely with nice ankles. Eleanor bent to fish some heavy bags of frozen items from the back of the trolley, at the bottom and I concentrated, able to lift the camera corner of my bag right up to the cantlilever of her hemline, hopefully getting a close up, happy that the camera would focus automatically.

The trolley was repositioned to make it easier for her and I carefully moved closer as Eleanor gathered herself close to the rail of the moving counter, making it easy for me to slide the bag under the overhanging construction, to one side in front of her right leg, in an attempt to capture a front crotch view, that would be a bonus. She shifted suddenly and nudged the bag. As I tried to recover it, she glanced down and then at me, but I ignored her and gazed away at a slight commotion on the next checkout. I was pretty quick and practised at the hazards such as this, I wasn’t a novice but one has to be on the ball.